Football
Sam Marsden, Barcelona correspondent 7y

Barcelona's Luis Enrique on Valencia bottle incident: We play fair

Luis Enrique insists that the fallout which has followed last weekend's win over Valencia is just another controversy and will not have a negative effect on his Barcelona players.

Barca have asked the Administrative Court of Sport (TAS) to take action against the Spanish RFEF competition committee as well as La Liga president Javier Tebas for comments made following a bottle being thrown at their players at Mestalla. 

The object was launched at the Blaugrana players as they celebrated Lionel Messi's stoppage time winner in front of the Valencia supporters.

Los Che were fined €1,500 for the incident, but Barcelona were also reprimanded by the RFEF for provoking Valencia supporters.

The RFEF accused Barcelona players of being "less than exemplary" in the way they provoked the scenes which marred the game and then exaggerating the damage done by the bottle.

Tebas, meanwhile, said it was embarrassing how they collapsed "like bowling pins," and accused them of faking contact.

"I refer to the announcement made by the club [on Thursday]," Luis Enrique said in response during a news conference on Friday.

"Other than that I have nothing else to say. I'm focused on the football side of things and [Saturday's] game. We're accustomed to an infinite number of controversies and this is just another one.

"I'm not going to stoke the fire anymore. The only thing I can say about my players is we won the fair play award, we have club values, which are playing well and not trying to hurt other players.

"They are values we try to transmit by word of mouth and on the field. We don't kick others and we don't hurt other players. We're the team with the least yellow cards and we will continue playing and hopefully giving the fans good football."

Pressed for more commentary, Luis Enrique refused to be drawn into the debate: "It doesn't benefit us to talk about it. We will focus on things we can control.

"Everything else, sorry for you, but I won't speculate. We don't want to create controversy. What happened this week has been spoken about ad nauseam, I have nothing to add.

"I'm here to talk football. Everyone's made their point, expressed their opinion. I'm focused on Granada."

Turning his attention to the game, Luis Enrique expects Granada, who recently replaced Paco Jemez with Lucas Alcaraz, to sit deep at the weekend and hopes a "mentally rested" Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez can break them down.

The forwards were three of a number of players given four days off after the win against Valencia to recharge their batteries.

"There are players who don't have time to rest and this was the first time I could give them time off," the Barca boss said.

"I spoke to the fitness coach and this time off doesn't affect them from a physical point of view, it was important from a mental point of view.

"It gives them time with their families to enjoy themselves and then come back for a fixture list which doesn't give them time to rest. They're international players, so it's practically impossible for them to rest."

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